The Story Retold | The Gospel of Mark

Mark’s Gospel is a story in motion — fast-paced, vivid, and full of urgency. In this Story Retold session, Pastor Mark explores how Mark presents Jesus as both the Son of God and the Son of Man: the promised Messiah who brings God’s kingdom through suffering and service.

You’ll see how the structure of the book points us toward the cross, why the ending is intentionally abrupt, and how Mark’s message challenges us to follow Christ with courage and immediacy.

Watch the full class below and be encouraged to open your Bible and read Mark’s Gospel with fresh eyes — noticing how every “immediately” drives us closer to the heart of the good news.

📖 Click to Show the Transcript of this Class

We'll try to keep this as terse as possible. Let's open with prayer, and then we'll dig into Mark, which I have to say, I think Mark is my favorite gospel, not because I share a name with it, but because of the urgency of it. It feels like it's constantly going. And so hopefully I can do the same thing for us today without getting off on rabbit trails because I enjoy it so much. So let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you and we thank you for your word. And we thank you for these different Gospels that give us different perspectives. And we thank you for the gospel of Mark that gives us a sense of the urgency of the message of Jesus. We pray that we would approach the book with an urgency towards the message, but with patience and understanding. It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. So the first thing that we look at when we look at a book is who the author is. And the author of Mark is John Mark. He's a companion of Peter. So we could say that the gospel of Mark is coming from his perspective and from his stories.

So while John Mark was probably not an eyewitness to everything that happened, he was pretty young. He was not with Jesus through his three-year ministry, more than likely, Peter was, and Peter was the source for this. And there's a purpose behind the book. It is written mainly for a Roman audience facing persecution. So last time we said it was for a primarily Jewish audience. It had this idea that Jesus was the true king, but also Matthew gave us this idea that Jesus was the new Moses, right? Because the way it tells the story, he's teaching from a mountain just as Moses delivered the law from a mountain. He is delivering five loaves and the fish and multiplying it just as the manna and quail were multiplied by Moses in the desert, right? This is for a Roman audience facing persecution. You can get that as you read it because the idea is suffering quite often. We're going to get to that in just a minute. But suffering and endurance. The date of Mark is the early '60s. I'm of the opinion that the three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are all written prior to the year '70.

The evidence is very, very strong. Also, they all refer to the destruction of the temple. John was definitely written after the year '70 and doesn't seem to care about the destruction of the temple. Why would that be? Because it's gone. He's not sending a message to early Christians, be ready for this to happen, because that was a terrible, terrible event that the early Christians needed to be ready for, which happened in 70, by the way, the temple was destroyed. The The story or the purpose is it shows that Jesus is the suffering son of God, whose path to glory runs through the cross. You've probably heard me talk about in the past these categories that Martin Luther had, theology of glory versus the theology of the cross. Man wants glory, but God brings glory through suffering through the cross. That's a big theme in the gospel of Mark. The big picture here is that the gospel of Mark tells us the story of Jesus in motion. Motion. It shows us also that true discipleship means following a savior who serves and suffers. There's this language of immediately on a regular basis, Jesus is always doing something.

You go from one story to the next really quickly. He's in motion, but it's all leading to the cross. That's where we're headed. Here are some of the key themes. The first is the authority of Jesus. As you read it, you're going to see right from the beginning that Jesus commands storms, demons, disease, and even death. We get the message that Jesus is a messenger from God by this. Again, as you've heard me say in sermons many times, we like to think that maybe miracles were happening all the time. In scripture, when miracles happen, it's to show that God is working, God is on the move. The miracles of Jesus are telling us a particular thing about who Jesus is, too. It's confessed. Sometimes it's even confessed by the people who see it. Who is this that can stop the wind and the storms? They're saying, Hey, this guy has the power of God, and he's just like one of us. This is amazing. Other times we see things like Jesus taking care of blindness or deafness. What's the underlying message? Not only that Jesus is doing these miracles, but that he is able to make the blind see.

You and I are spiritually blind. He can make us see. We're spiritually deaf to the word of God, but he opens our ears, that thing. These miracles have authority, and his miracles confirm it is a divine authority. He is not just some guy out teaching in the wilderness who can do some tricks. He is a messenger from God. He is like a prophet of old, but he's more than that. We're going to see that in some of the titles that uses. We'll spend a lot of time on that. But the next thing that's amazing or fun to look for, I guess, in Mark, and it's present in all of the Gospels, but in Mark, what we call the Messianic secret is a big deal. There's always this, We know who Jesus is, but don't tell nobody. We see that as the readers, but you see it in the disciples as well. So he frequently tells people not to reveal his identity as Messiah. Well, why? And we know the story of this. The perfect example of this is good Friday or is Palm Sunday leading to Good Friday, right? Because the world expects a political conqueror, not a suffering savior.

I always talk about on Palm Sunday, Jesus goes into Jerusalem, and the moment at which Good Friday was going to happen was when he went to the temple instead of the government seat of authority. He was taking off the people by not throwing out the Romans, and he was going to take off the pharisees and the Levites and the scribes and all these people at the temple. I can't believe it took four days. You're surprised. You know how people are. It's a miracle that he wasn't taken care of right away. Then the The full revelation of who Jesus is then comes at the cross. That is the high point of the gospel of Mark. There's a testimony there. You know this very well. The testimony of the Roman centurion saying, Truly, this man was the Son of God. We know that, but when you think about this in light of the Messianic secret, that we're not supposed to say anything. The Apostles aren't supposed to say anything. We're moving, moving. Then All these people who've known the whole time, who is able to say that this man is the Son of God? Well, the gospel of Mark, this pagan Roman who is working to crucify the man sees who he is.

I mean, what a moment. It's just the whole thing is crafted in such a way that it builds through the gospel of Mark. Then you have this confession at 15: 39. Then we also have the way of the cross. So the turning point in Mark is Peter's confession. You know the story. Who do the people say I am? Well, they say you this, you're that, you're that. I think one of the things is Elijah or whatever. Well, then what does Jesus say? I think we know. Who do you say that I am, Peter? And Peter confesses, You are the Christ. Right? And then immediately there's a switch. We've been building on a quick-paced story. We've been building to this guy's the Messiah, this guy's Messiah, this guy is the Messiah. This guy is the Messiah. This guy is the Messiah. When is he going to take over? And then immediately once we know once Peter professes that he's the Christ, that he's the Anointed one, he's the Messiah, what happens? I'm going to suffer. What? No, that's not how this works. And Peter says that, right? And so discipleship in Mark then points to self-denial.

Take up your cross and follow me. I'm going to the cross. Let's go. You're going to go, too. Following Jesus means service, it means sacrifice, and it means steadfastness. You're going to have to stand firm. What we talked about before is the urgency of it. The gospel of Mark uses immediately more than 40 times. Not only that, you can see it where he mixes in. I can't remember what the word is, but it is another Greek word. That means the same thing. Immediately, there are 40 times. There's other ideas of this urgency of the message of the gospel of Mark. There's just an awesome pace to the book. It shows the intensity of the mission of Jesus and the urgency of responding to him. When you read it with this in mind, you really start to feel it a little bit more. I highly recommend read through Mark and point out to yourself the immediately Because you're like, oh, yeah. Mark isn't very thick. Sixteen chapters to use immediately 40 times, your English teacher would have downgraded you for using the same word too much in that little bit of space, right? You have to spell immediately first.

But that's the big thing. And then Mark ends abrupt, so abrupt that later scribes added endings onto it because it was too short. A good Bible will say, Earliest manuscripts of Mark do not have verses after verse 8. The idea is that we're to respond and continue to the mission. I think I preached on Mark 16 last Easter, and my summary statement was, What Mark is trying to say is, Okay, this whole thing has been happening. We've come to this point. What are you going to do with the message? That's why it ends abruptly. It's now going to you. It's being passed on to his followers. We're left hanging. The idea is we need to continue this mission. What's the structure of it as we read through Mark's gospel? The first thing we see is the authority of the Son of God. Verses 1 through 8: 26. Jesus's power and compassion are displayed in Galilee. One thing that I always have to remind myself, maybe you don't have to do this, but from Sunday school and from when I was a child, my My brain told me that Jesus must be in Jerusalem because that's the city in Israel, I know.

But he's rarely ever in Jerusalem. When we talk about walking where Jesus walked, we talk about places where the temple would have been and these places in Jerusalem when our family and friends go and they take pictures. But really, where did Jesus walk? Hillsides in Galilee, the most backwater places in the Roman world. He was a quiet teacher. He wasn't making a whole lot of noise initially because he was out in the middle of nowhere. But eventually, the people came to him in these backwater places. We see in there this power, this compassion, but the growing nature of who he is and the authority he has. The repeated question that comes is, who is this? Okay, what's this guy doing? How can he do it? Who is this guy? Who is this that calms the waves? That's the repeated question, and that shows us the authority of the Son of God that, wait, nobody else can do this. He's got to be, right? Because nobody else could. That's what that question is intending to spark in us. So the crowd's marvel, and the disciples struggle to understand. I love the disciples in all the Gospels.

They're always the foil. But Peter, man, that guy was honest. He's telling John and Mark what to write. He didn't gloss over anything. He's like, Yeah, we were knuckleheads. We didn't get it, basically. I mean, again, that's true in all of the Gospels, but it's really true in Mark. They are just the foil. Do you not understand type of thing? The crowds are marveling, and the people who are closest to him are like, Okay, we're seeing who you are. We're marveling at the same thing the crowds are marveling at. Why aren't you telling us about the plans for revolt? How are we going to take care of Roman centurions? They're like, What are we doing? We've come to follow you because you're the Messiah. We were expecting more of this. The next thing is the road to the cross. It turns at 8: 27 with, like I mentioned before, Peter's confession of Jesus the Christ. Then Jesus starts teaching about suffering, death, and resurrection. Now, he doesn't really speak directly of the resurrection. It's more speaking about The death in such a way that there isn't a finality to it. Also, the disciples really wrestle with greatness and humility.

Those stories of the disciples arguing on the road. Which one of us is going to sit at his right-hand? Which one is going to sit at his Who's going to be in charge of this? Who's going to be Secretary of State? We are going to help you get elected, Jesus. We need a spot in your cabinet. What does Jesus say? No, my crown is a cross, and the cup you are going to drink is my blood. Again, put yourself in the disciple shoes. They're the foil. They're the doofus, for the lack of word, the people who don't understand. In in Mark's gospel, but that would be us. We would be looking for a cabinet position, too. Finally, the whole deck is going to be shifted. We've been on the bottom. We're with Jesus now. When the deck gets shuffled, we're on top. That's the struggle that we see there. Also, then we move on to the cross in the resurrection, verses 11 through 16: 8. Think about that. There's 16 chapters. Sixteen is really short on top of it all. But there's 16 chapters and 11 through 16. So more than a third of it is about basically leading up to one event, specifically.

And so that focus shifts to Jerusalem. Like I said, we often forget that Jesus was only in Jerusalem really on the feast days. In fact, that's how we time the Ministry of Jesus by the gospel of John. When we get to that. Really focus is on Jesus observing the feast. But the focus shifts to Jerusalem, and Jesus confronts opposition, which was the religious leaders. It was the pharisees, particularly. Jesus really upsets the apple cart with the pharisees because they are trying to get Jews back to following the law, back to the way things should be. They know that if stuff doesn't go good with Rome, the that they have is going to be over because they were given a special exception as Jewish people of not having to participate in the Imperial cult. Ultimately, this all comes to a head when the temple is destroyed in the year 70. At the end of the day, the Jewish people got on a line and Rome said, We're done. Your city is burning. The temple is being destroyed. Now God used that to put an end to the old covenant rituals. It was ordained by him, but that's how the story went.

Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. He's crucified. Then back here to the empty tomb, we're left pondering the question, Will you follow the risen Lord? Jesus is not here. He's gone. He must have gone somewhere. Will you follow him? What will you do with the message of the empty tomb? The theological emphasis, real quick, as we're getting close to be done, I promise 20 minutes, I'll be a little bit over that. But there's two theological emphasis that are really important. Jesus is the Son of Man. We've already talked about him being the Son of God. Jesus is the Son of Man and Son of God. So Mark's gospel begins by calling Jesus the Son of God in verse one. But then how does Jesus refer to himself throughout the gospel? He calls himself Son of Man. Now, that is not just him saying, I was born of a human. Mind you, that is what he is doing. But it is calling back Daniel 7: 13-14. In verse 7: 14 of Daniel, I believe it is, One, like a Son of Man, came up to the ancient of days. We would say that that is referring to the eventual ascension of Jesus.

But Jesus refers to himself as this phrase. He's calling on this phrase, and it shows that he has authority and glory from God. He is the Messiah. He is the promised one from the Old Testament. So by using that title, Jesus shows himself as the one who brings God's Kingdom. Again, in Daniel 7: 14, he comes up to the ancient of days, and he is glorified in that. And so he is the one bringing that kingdom that is spoken of there. And he fulfills this promise through suffering and service instead of political power. Again, that is huge because it's contrary to what we expect. And again, the audience of Mark are Roman Christians who are experiencing persecution at the hands of the government in the '60s. You know the name. Who was, maybe you don't know when he was a tyrant, but who was the tyrant of Rome in the '60s? Nero, arguably one of the most terrible people who's ever lived. He was persecuting Christians. He burned down the city because he wanted to change things and blame the Christians. He would bring Christians in, cover them in tar, and use them as candles in his garden.

This is what they were experiencing. Yeah, it's true. You don't even want to... There's a great book called The Beast of Revelation, and basically making the argument that Nero was the beast, and the stuff that Nero did is like, you only read that part of the book once. It was awful. This is a message to Christians that you're going to suffer, but you He will ultimately be victorious because of Jesus. Even Jesus did not overcome by political power. He overcame through suffering. That's seen in the fact that Jesus is a servant king. He came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. He suffers, but it brings life. His kinship is defined by humility, obedience, and sacrifice. Humility, he was humbled at the cross. Obedience, he went to cross, even though he had the power, he could calm storms. He did not need to go to the cross. As he's dragging that cross through, the man who could calm the storms could have calmed the crowds. He could have split them and walked away. He did it earlier in his ministry, right? When they were trying to stone him, he walked right through without being touched.

He could have done it on Good Friday, but instead he was obedient, and he sacrificed himself. The cross is not a detour. In his mission, it is the mission. The cross is not plan B. The resurrection is not plan B. The ascension is not plan B. It is plan A all along. That Christ would be a king who suffers and then serves his people and brings them salvation. The cross then defines true greatness. Mark shows that glory comes through humility, victory, through surrender, and Life through death. Once again, contrary things, complete opposites. We do not think this way. Glory does not come through humility by the world's economy. Victory does not come through surrender in the way the world works. Life definitely doesn't come through death. But in God's economy, in the Kingdom of God, everything is upside down. Mind you, what I'm about to quote isn't in Mark, but the message of Jesus, go back to the Beatitudes, an upside down Kingdom. The meek will inherit the Earth. Same message here throughout the gospel of Mark, by the way, the humility of Jesus is shown. So the Son of Man, his suffering becomes the model for all who live for him.

Again, if our savior suffered, you Roman Christians suffering under the persecution of Nero, you probably will be suffering as well. Then faith then is a call to active obedience. The call of Mark's gospel is respond immediately. There's that word again. What are you going to do? Let's go. It's time. Today is the day. And so respond to Jesus immediately. And to confess him as both son of God and son of man is to trust his authority and imitate his way of a self-giving service. And so from that, the challenge for us then is that Mark leaves us with a question. If Jesus truly is the son of God who gave his life as a ransom for many, how will we follow him today? In what way will we follow? That's the message throughout the gospel of Mark, but that's what that empty tomb short ending does for us. That abrupt ending, it passes it on to us. So how will we follow him? That's Mark in a nutshell. I hope that gives a really helpful reading. I recommend read Mark's gospel, and maybe, honestly, Maybe get one of those. You can have it here by tomorrow from Amazon.

It's just Mark's gospel, and it has pages you can write on. Do things like circle immediately or highlight immediately. You maybe don't want all the immediatelys in your regular reading Bible. I don't know. That's why I said maybe get one that is just Mark. But go through some time and just highlight all the immediatelys. You will be amazed, and you'll see what we're talking about here, the urgency of the message. Any questions? Yes, Phoebe. Yeah. Can you go back to the wood, the fairies were trying to get the views in line with the English to talk about the church? Yeah. They are painted as such bad guys throughout the Gospels. We often forget that their motives were really good. Like, they are painted as such bad guys throughout the Gospels. We often forget that their motives were really good. Like, they That diaspora, because of the spreading out of Jews throughout the Roman Empire. Remember, they went into exile and they came back, and they went and came back. The Jewish faith had really fallen apart. Through the work of the work of the work of the Roman Empire, Just generally, but the pharisees really solidified this, synagogs sprang up all over the place, and they would come to worship, and they'd gather together, and they started to get back to observing the law.

Well, living in a pagan world, living in a world that's hostile to the law of God, the pharisees, in a well-meaning way, added all these extra laws to help the people become good Jews, to become good Hebrews. The problem is they took it too far. You know this. You've read the gospel, you've heard the stories that they were continually making these rules the rules. That happens with anything. You set up one thing, it's designed for one purpose, and we become so focused on that purpose. That was meant to make something accomplished, but we've become more about the thing we established instead of what we really intended. That's what happened. They're the bad guys, don't get me wrong, in the Gospels. They did terrible things, but we need to remember that they were not malicious. They were trying to return people to keeping the law because the Jewish faith had beyond fallen on hard times. Nobody knew anything anymore because they'd all been dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. That's good? All right. Well, let me send us off with prayer, and then we'll go rest for the rest of the day and enjoy our lunches. So heavenly Holy Father, we thank you for the message that we see in the gospel of Mark, that the Son of Man is also the Son of God.

He is the promised Messiah. And we thank you for the urgency of this book, not just because it makes it exciting to read, but because it reminds us that your message is urgent. May we have an urgency to the story of the gospel in our interactions this week, in sharing it and living out what you call us to do in your kingdom. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.